Is it just me, or does everyone else just not care about realism in games?

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Viperjts10

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I'm confused on what technology there is out there as to how games are developed.

Does anyone here care at all about realism in a game, or is it all about gameplay. Sure gameplay is what makes a good game, but IMHO, I think realism plays a big role in this.

I just bought World in Conflict, and started playing it, but the realism just wasn't up to my expectation.

What I mean when I talk about realism is...

  • Dead guys not just "vanishing" after they die
  • footprints on ground should NOT dissappear magically
  • explosions and building pieces should not dissappear either
  • In world of Conflict, 6 guys could be in a jeep, but if you zoom in and look through the windows of the jeep, all you see is 2 guys.

Those are some things I'm talking about. Sure if you left dead guys and all these extra particles in the playing field, then it may get more laggy or something, but isn't there technology out there already capable of handling this kind of stuff?

There is so much realism put into the sounds of the game, and the exploding animations and the environment and even in Company of Heroes, the guy's body parts get blown up, and that's the first game I'm seen that in.

Anyways, I'm just curious to know what everyone else thinks of this. I was hoping for more realism in WOrld of Conflict, but as soon as I started playing my first game online, I saw guys dissappearing out of no where, and things just poofing. I'm like wtf is this. The graphics sounds are all great, but then these little details are just garbage.

Comments or remarks?
 
That's not what I was saying. I was wondering IF technology can allow this, then why don't they do it.
 
No idea, all I know is that when I was having fun playing it i never wondered how many guys I could see riding in a humvee. I felt more compelled to read the map and my tactical situation, and decide what to do next. Not to mention if you were to display the exact number of troops in a vehicle, you'd have to program the game to show that number, it's far easier to show a generic number since not too many people actually care about it. Also, the game treats units in groups, not individual men. They're squads and their "health" or "strength" is determined by the collective strength of its parts. Footprints and tire/tank tracks have to disappear after a while or it will seriously start eating up vram. Imagine every unit's effect on the game world in a match and think of how much stuff would have to stay in memory over the course of 10 minutes...hell, a whole hour. Every game nowadays has something that disappears due to distance from camera/player or after time or as soon as room needs to be made for a more recent addition to memory. It's how you get a playable framerate and no crashes.
 
I think a lot of it has to do with the available memory. Devs don't want to waste time coding for things to stick around forever when most people (using Steam stats) only have 256-512mb of RAM in their PC.

I do wish it was an option though. Some things like bullet holes, bodies, and blood I want to stay. I also hate shooting lights and windows and they don't break.
 
Sobek said:
I think a lot of it has to do with the available memory. Devs don't want to waste time coding for things to stick around forever when most people (using Steam stats) only have 256-512mb of RAM in their PC.

I do wish it was an option though. Some things like bullet holes, bodies, and blood I want to stay. I also hate shooting lights and windows and they don't break.
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This is exactly what I was thinking. The available memory is probably extremely limiting when it comes to such ideas. It would take a lot out of your memory if you had thousands of dead guys piling up on your screen :p
 
Then why not do as Sobek said and at least have game companies make this an OPTION in the graphics detail menu. Depending on your type of computer or graphics card, they should be able to implement how detailed a game is. It's no different than changing regular detail in any other game.

By giving users the most customization in a game, I think it would be more successful and it will appeal to more users than just those with the high tech rigs.
 
Viperjts10 said:
Then why not do as Sobek said and at least have game companies make this an OPTION in the graphics detail menu. Depending on your type of computer or graphics card, they should be able to implement how detailed a game is. It's no different than changing regular detail in any other game.

By giving users the most customization in a game, I think it would be more successful and it will appeal to more users than just those with the high tech rigs.
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Perhaps it takes some extra dev time and money that they just don't see as necessary as of yet? Pure speculation, but seems logical, no?
 
RavenShield has the option to leave dead guys showing or disappear. But then that game has less of a body count than some other games and it can be a performance issue. Sometimes it's just because developers don't want to spend the extra resources coding for superfluous aspects to game play. In Splintercell you can shoot out light bulbs because it affects game play, most other games it has no benefit as the baddies can see just as well in the dark as in the light.
 
World in Conflict is already a memory hog, if all the bullet holes, footprints, soldiers were kept on the battleground, there would be a lot of framerate spike. And thats not very appealing to gamers.
 
chinspecial said:
Perhaps it takes some extra dev time and money that they just don't see as necessary as of yet? Pure speculation, but seems logical, no?
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that and once the bulk of the gaming market upgrades to better pcs you will see games that start to add more realism. A business doesn't want two dedicated gamers loot when it could have a hundred people who will spend their loot on a game that is fun and plays well.
 
These additional decal effects slow down the game very quickly if you don't remove them from the game world after a certain amount have been reached.

I've never tweaked WiC but I'm betting that if it has ini or cfg files you could tweak the max time to live or max amount of those sorts of effects. But don't be suprised when you're 1/2 way through a game and your frame rate is now 1fps.

It's purely a hardware limitation.

Then why not do as Sobek said and at least have game companies make this an OPTION in the graphics detail menu. Depending on your type of computer or graphics card, they should be able to implement how detailed a game is. It's no different than changing regular detail in any other game.
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It's a good question, these game engines are often highly scaleable as their planned usage is often well into the years (several generations) and can handle these effects if your rig is powerful enough. Quite often what happens is developers will create a system which is totaly scaleable based on a parameter, like number of decals for example, and that can be as low as zero, or as high as you like, they then set a slider in game or some way of letting the user pic a value, but often cap this value off at some arbitrary value.

For example, the grass distance slider in oblivion, it has a max value, but that's not a software limitation, thats an arbitrary limitation picked by the developer. However you can open up the Oblivion ini files and tweak the raw value of that parameter to be far higher than what the slider allows, so the question really is, why don't developers leave these settings open ended (where possible)

My guess is that they cannot expect the average user to be smart enough to balance these settings, they might tweak the graphics a bit and set a grass draw distance slider to 500 meters, when in fact it's only sensible (for performance reasons) to set it to something closer to 50 meters, in which case the game is going to run like crap. It's just a bit of hand holding to ensure the *average* user can't break the gaming experience, often enough they leave this values uncapped in the ini or cfg files so you can actually exceed the highest in game settings, but only if you know what you're doing, and thats how it should be IMO
 
In my experience, realism doesn't always equal fun gameplay....and sometimes it gets in the way and slows things down. For example...I enjoy playing some games that try to be "simulators" but when I think about the most addictive, adrenaline pumping games that I've played...sims usually aren't in the mix. Games are about an escape from real life..

edit- sometimes realism has to be sacrificed to make up for limitations in todays hardware, it has gotten better in the last 10 years or so and will continue.
 
When I think of "realism" I tend to be more concerned with consistency. So the "6 guys in a jeep magically becomes two guys" would annoy me because it is inconsistent with the game's own interface.

Decals/dead guys/rubble disappearing, yes, that's an issue of performance. As long as I have a slider or value I can edit to tweak it based on what my system can do, that's cool.

"Realism" usually isn't used to mean "this game should duplicate the real world" as much as "this game should be consistent with the aspects of the real world the developer has chosen to represent."

So if the developer pushes the "real world" physics of the game then I want to see some consistency in how the physics engine works. If they talk about hit detection being realistic then I want a head shot to be very damaging. A tank shell hitting next to an infantryman should knock him on his ass, if not outright kill him.

It's easy to go nuts with the "realism" tag but in the end it's more about consistency of vision in game design.
 
I don't care if it's realistic or not as long as it's fun. However, if they design the game around being realistic and something about it isn't, that will detract from the experience for me.
 
There's reasons that some of the "realisms" in games aren't taken into consideration as heavily as others, and those have already been said: it'd be more intensive on the computer. Sure, hardware and all has gotten better, but that has transcribed into other things (that most people care about): load times, other graphical features, etc. They ditch the "realisms" you mentioned for these things.
 
World in Combat isn't all that real I agree...

The "nuke" in reality would probably take out half a state, not just half a city. But perhaps its just a MOAB.
 
Realism is utterly irrelevant. It can't make a game fun on its own, but good, well thought-out gameplay can.
 
Nukes, unless its a PeaceKeeper style ballistic missile, will only take out about 8 blocks on average from the incineration zone, the blast radious will probably take out another 36 blocks, radiation zones will ensure life within proximity or over explosed to the ultraviolate light will be gone, the one used in the game was damn believable as far as strategic nuclear weapons go. You have to figure this was one of OUR weapons used on US soil, so the weapon of choice here would probably be the least detrimental.

Realism in games, while building, our hardware just can't take it yet. At the high end i think they can do it just fine, time to build their software and giving their all to their buyers would probably take too long and when they are finished? it'll be too outdated. So what we got is most likely their best (just guessing here ;) ), they don't want to spend too much time and money on something so minimalist.

Either way I hate ultra realistic games, I stick mainly to Sci-Fi oriented games and sometimes i venture off to others, like World in Conflict (loved that game to death)
 
This isnt a new idea by now means, hell Ive even brought up the "realistic" issue before myself.

But, the bottom line is.....PERSPECTIVE!!!

Whats "real" enough for you may not be "real" enough for the next person...etc...etc...

Where is the line drawn?

I havent played WiC myself, but I assume its some sort of "shoot'em up" type of game. If so, how many guns do you get to carry? Binoculars? Food and Water?

In most of these games, your able to carry multiple guns PLUS ammo for it all and some how, some way, your still able to carry all kinds of other things in your "Inventory".

To be "real", you would be limiited to 2 guns, depending on the gun. You would have ZERO health bottles floating in the air and for that matter, to be "REAL", there really isnt a such thing as a "health" juice/can/vial/magic. And, a step further...to be for "real".....you get shot....say, in the leg....chances are, your not going to keep on running and say "well, i still have 75 health".

Thruout playing this "real" game, on average, Id say the casual game and gamer takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-40hours to complete. When do you go to the bathroom?

And lets not even talk about "PAUSE" and "SAVE" game.....To be for "real", neither of these would exist, you either start the game and dont finish, or start the game and keep on playing till the very end, cause if you stop/quit the game for the night, you have to start all over again next time you play.

So, again.....Where does someone draw the line on "how real" a game should or should not be?
 
Really though, every soldier wargame never factors in the amount of ammo someone can carry though.

I mean its like in real life, if they actually did that much damage, they would have to be carrying the equivalent of a half a ton of ammo, lol.
 
Sure, but whats to stop the aggressors from using nukes in the first place?

These war scenarios are actually all pretty moot, they are actually much more accurate descriptions of how a WWIII war with modern weaponry, minus nuke intervention would be... Which would probably actually never happen in that manner.

"Don't bring a knife to a nuke fight" And trust me - everything non-nuclear in the US arsenal is a knife in comparison to a nuke.

PS: WWIII would probably be more realistic for a videogame, in that more than likely it would be done and decided in two days and not several years.
 
Talkin bout war type games.....Hows this for a "REAL" thought....

Ever had "that" game which you just really REALLY were good at, i.e. you were always top shooter on the server or you were a good sniper and lasted a long time before being picked off????

Yeah......Me too.....

But....you STILL get shot and die.

Now, heres the thought.....

What IF these games we play, actually did become a reality, per se, WWIII, Armageddon.

How long would YOU last? And remember......you get shot, chances are your going to die. No restarts, No do-overs. Just DEAD!!!

Dont know bout you guys, but "those" games I became good at, I didnt start out that way. Id get shot without ever even seeing who or where the shot came from....Imagine that.....just one second, you think your alone and the enemy is in front of you and then.........

Scary thought, ehh.....

My hats off to the "real" troops out there.....
 
Chacranajxy said:
Realism is utterly irrelevant. It can't make a game fun on its own, but good, well thought-out gameplay can.
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That's true to an extent; a game needs to be fun to play above all else. However, realism (graphics, environments, interactivity, true-to-life realism, and AI) can make the game more immersive, drawing you in further to the game and in the end (if done right) can only add to the experience, IMHO.
 
Theres no obvious correlation between realism and fun games.

It has a time and a place, I'd say it's best reserved for simulators such as F1 racing, or flight simulators, anything short of that and going for as much realism as possible is likely to be a detriment to the gameplay. We expect a certain basic level of realim in most of our games but only to the point where it makes sense to us, other than that and anything goes.
 
Give a developer infinite memory space and infinite computing power and see what he can create

It's not the imagination that's stagnant for realism, we're just limited by technology. You wonder why people complain about the 6 month video card cycle... if we didn't have new tech coming around to handle all the stuff we can imagine, there'd be no way to express it all.
 
Hell, if youw anted real you wouldn't be some omnipotent being floating above the battlefield.

You'd be a general in a remote location looking at deployment and battle reports then tell the next person below you what to do.

The entire game would be spent looking at paper.
 
I don't care about realism in games.

I live in realism all day long, it's old news. Enhance it, suspend it, whatever, just liven it up and make it fun. I'm not playing games to experience reality, I'm playing games to have fun. Bend, implement, or create whatever rules are necessary to make it fun. Too many developers lose sight of that in their design philosophy (I'm looking at you MMOs, no timesinks should ever be allowed, spending time on something fun is the goal, not wasting time on something boring.)
 
For me, first person shooters are one of my favorite type of games. One of the biggest things that throws me off from a certain FPS is if you or your enemies can take over like 6 to 8 shots to kill. Among other things. I prefer games that are like 60% realism 40% arcade. Games that are slightly more realistic than CoD are what I like...such as Red Orchestra and new Raven shield games .
 
ZenOps said:
World in Combat isn't all that real I agree...

The "nuke" in reality would probably take out half a state, not just half a city. But perhaps its just a MOAB.
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The nuke in this game takes out about one or two blocks, A tactical should at least take out half a large town. A MOAB is more effective than the thing in the game.
 
i think the only thing stopping full realism in games is the hardware.

and do remember, developers will never be able to make the 'perfect' Springfield sound, or the 'perfect' M4A1 model.
 
^^^The only thing stopping realism is the gamers. They don't want realism for the most part. Have you ever been on say the Company of Heroes forums and seen how much they all can't stand realism. Hardware plays a part but gamers want Hollywood realism.

I was hoping this topic would be about actual realism not just graphical realism.

I love WIC but it is a bit to arcadey.
 
Play Armed Assault. Dead bodies and disabled vehicles NEVER disappear and the island is so big that it takes at least an hour to walk across.
 
kelbear said:
I don't care about realism in games.

I live in realism all day long, it's old news. Enhance it, suspend it, whatever, just liven it up and make it fun. I'm not playing games to experience reality, I'm playing games to have fun. Bend, implement, or create whatever rules are necessary to make it fun. Too many developers lose sight of that in their design philosophy (I'm looking at you MMOs, no timesinks should ever be allowed, spending time on something fun is the goal, not wasting time on something boring.)
Click to expand...

I agree with you. I mean even if I'm moving around in a world that looks real, I still want an unreal experience.
 
I never liked it either when the bodies of anyone dissipeared. Just makes the game more plain with nothing lieing around. I think games should be unrealistic and realistic at the same time though. Like they can go to a certain point but once it goes past that point it becomes just rediculous like floating people and all that with anti gravity. I'm fine if its fun though :cool:
 
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